Please dont use Wikipedia as proof. Since it is edited by anyone, anyone can edit it.

However, this picture on Wikipedia is labelled as "Traditional Arakan Naban"

Does it look like anything you do?

There was a martial art in Burma/Myanmar just for the bodyguards of kings, I have forgotten the name. The current king of Burmese boxing is Bando, which has cross pollinated with MT.

Some uses of Wikipedia can probably be excused:

The Rakhine people (formerly Arakanese), are an ethnic group of Myanmar, and form the majority along Rakhine State's coastal regions. They possibly constitute 4% or more of Myanmar's population but no accurate census figures exist.

Rakhine State:

In effect, your Martial Art is named after an ethnic group, rather then using one of the traditional names of Burmese Martial Arts. Sort of like if I founded a Martial Art and called it Quebec.

Askari I thought maybe the Arakan Naban was from a ceremonial/sport system now called Rakhine Wrestling (post 10) but ARAKAN said he had never heard of it, and that was that apparently. He didn't say whether this looked like what he did, but it doesn't look like anything described or on video.

I think the royal open hand system was Nan Twin Thiang, a form of Bando, which still doesn't jibe with what we see in the videos or the claimed origin date of 2666 BC. We still haven't heard anything substantial on this ancient origin either.

Really nothing substantial on anything. All we seem to get is "It's absolutely true that (Arakan guy won the UFC)/(Arakan was a super secret form from a really long time ago in Burma)/(My strikes are t3h d3adly)" followed up by "This is something I heard once from an instructor" -type backpedaling.

I think the origins of Arakan have been pretty thoroughly busted at this point, or at least relegated to "well it might be true but then again so might Atlantis and aliens building the pyramids." The only thing left to affirm is the system's empirical effectiveness, which also looks pretty dubious given the video evidence. Conveniently since they don't spar (except maybe that one guy who won the UFC that nobody seems to be able to name) it's difficult to counter the horribleness of the video evidence.

Hopefully Deadmeat or someone will be able to go and report on firsthand experiences.

[QUOTE=Deadmeat]-------------------------
The stances and techniques in Arakan are unorthodox. My friend, Pete, frequently adopted a ready stance that comprised of placing his rear hand on his chin in the thinking man's pose, and his forward hand touching the elbow - basically like this:

Many of the striking techniques revolve around hammer fists and knife hand strikes, swung with a whip-like motion from the core, thrown in quick succession.

From that description, the stance would be referred to in Combative circles as the "Jack Benny stance." Also frequently used by bouncers as it doesn't appear to be a defensive/offensive stance to an onlooker. Doesn't make Arakan more than it is.

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The stances and techniques in Arakan are unorthodox. My friend, Pete, frequently adopted a ready stance that comprised of placing his rear hand on his chin in the thinking man's pose, and his forward hand touching the elbow - basically like this:

Many of the striking techniques revolve around hammer fists and knife hand strikes, swung with a whip-like motion from the core, thrown in quick succession.

From that description, the stance would be referred to in Combative circles as the "Jack Benny stance." Also frequently used by bouncers as it doesn't appear to be a defensive/offensive stance to an onlooker. Doesn't make Arakan more than it is.

Wow - thanks for that, mate. I had no idea. This is becoming quite an interesting thread. So, from a combative perspective, how effective is this particular pose? I can see how it would be useful in defusing a potential situation, and if the person using it was able to use some sort of effective attacks from there, all the better. I'd simply never seen or heard of it before.

That's it exactly. We stand front with our hands raised infront or sometimes on the chin like in the pick so we don't give away our intent to hit. Being fronton enables us easy reach using both horizontal, vertical and diagnal lines.
For example, you can do an entry backfist from the hands being around the chin back into an edge htting the same side of the head followed by a palm strike to the other side of the head foloowed by a straight knuckel to the sternum, eye socket, temple, bridge of the nose ect.

Would you like to go back and actually attempt to answer some of the questions raised in this thread? Because that would be good. If you could do that. I personally would be really happy if you'd put some thought toward that.

Because you haven't done that yet. And that's making the baby Jesus cry.

And thus far, your school has pretty much been relegated to "appears to be bullshido, has to dig a lot to get out of this hole" status.

I, for one, am going to try to avoid asking you any more questions until you can actually answer some earlier ones in a way that indicates you've thought. As opposed to regurgitated. Because it is a waste of time to ask questions that won't be answered.